Читать книгу Her Sister’s Secret - E.V. Seymour - Страница 26

Zach looked as if he hadn’t moved since my last visit. Sitting down, shades on, thighs spread, soaking up the sun. The only difference: Tanya sat beside him cross-legged on the dry ground, as if someone had taken a pair of shears to her hair and tipped a pot of Dulux over what was left. ‘Lady in Red’ sprang to mind. As soon as she spotted me, she unfurled, lithe-limbed, and threw her arms around me in a hug. Sandalwood and sweat, incense and ingenuousness. Goodness knew what she saw in my brother. “Zach told me,” she whispered in my ear. “So sorry.” Drawing away, she asked after my parents even though she’d never met them. Probably never would.

I trotted out a neutral ‘as well as can be expected’ reply.

Much to my amazement, Zach had managed to prise himself out of his seat, stagger to his feet and engage in normal social niceties.

“Hi,” he said watchfully. Sizing me up.

“Is there somewhere we can go and talk, Zach?”

Catching on, Tanya said she needed to check on an ailing chicken.

“Sure, I —”

“Darling Molly,” a smooth educated voice, tidal in its delivery, one instantly recognisable, boomed over our heads. We did a collective turn and watched as Chancer bounded down the steps of what had once been a Romany caravan. He carried more weight than I remembered, the buttons of his white, open-neck shirt, which hung loose outside his jeans, competing with flesh and gravity. Fuller-faced too, a little dissolute around the eyes, he looked as though he’d returned from an all-night party. Before I knew it, I was grabbed and spun off my feet. Startled, I briefly forgot that I was in mourning. So had he, it seemed.